


Where You End Up

by clarityhiding



Category: Fringe, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-11 01:38:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4416131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarityhiding/pseuds/clarityhiding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The old hometown was not an easy place to visit, for many reasons. (It wasn't an easy place to leave.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where You End Up

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: (That's still a thing we do, right? Right?) Not mine! _Fringe_ belongs to WB, _Welcome to Night Vale_ to Commonplace Books.
> 
> I started this March of last year, before WtNV got all nostalgic about hometowns. I still regret nothing.

She hadn't been back since her father moved them away when she was still quite small, and, in truth, Astrid never gave the topic much thought. The move had been precipitated by her father's new job, or her mother's unfortunate death, or Astrid's own precociousness and her father's desire that she have access to better schools as she grew older. It was one of those or all of them or none of them, but it didn't really matter. Only one thing was certain, which was that after they moved away, they never went back.

There were, over the years, occasional letters or cards from her father's family, the ones left behind. Astrid's grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins—people whom she must have surely met and been close to when she was small, but barely even remembered now. Somehow, she lost them over the intervening decades. Her father never expressed a desire to return to the town where he'd grown up, not even for just a visit, and Astrid never pressed. She was too busy pushing on, pushing forward, learning new, amazing, wonderful things. It was rare for her to have much time for the past, there was so much to do in the present.

Not until the other Astrid came did it occur to her to wonder. "I've never been so far from home before," the other Astrid confided, in among the rest of her erratic chatter as she flitted about Walter's lab. A nervous bird, unable to fully settle in one place.

"Another universe is pretty far," Astrid allowed, gritting her teeth and wondering how she was going to fix this mess.

"Oh, no. I meant Boston," the other Astrid said in a rush.

"But—" Astrid began, remembering crisp, clear desert nights, the stars and lights twinkling high above, untouched by the glow of the city while miles of flat nothingness stretched out on all sides. "Never mind." This other Astrid was wired differently in her head and had no father. It wasn't much of a stretch for Astrid to believe her otherworldly counterpart had never known the desert, and she pushed the thought to the side as unimportant.

Once the other Astrid had returned home, though, Astrid found that now that she'd remembered, she couldn't easily forget it. Everyday things kept dragging her back to her half-forgotten childhood: A slice of pizza on a paper plate, its cheese congealed while grease cooled and turned a flat, matte orange on the pepperoni. A pool of sticky red gathering next to a sliced blood orange, abandoned by Walter as he skipped between cooking and science in his usual manner. Cheers from a high school football field she drove past one cool, autumn evening.

Even stranger were those things that, while everything _but_ everyday, nonetheless stirred up the ragged moths of memory. A tentacle slamming against an aquarium wall, startling and grotesque. Something huge and hairy, inhuman, but at the same time not. Strange lights arcing across the night sky, impossible and unnatural. An injured man, one moment gasping as he bled out the hole in his chest, the next moment gone, the clatter of a table falling over the only sign of his passing. Incidents that should be shocking and unexpected, but instead had her lifting her head and sniffing the air, expecting hot winds carrying the scents of dust and manzanita and, under it all, the always-prevalent, coppery tang of blood.

The sense of nostalgia persisted in the back of her mind for days, not quite there but also never truly leaving her, to the extent that Astrid felt no surprise when the woman appeared beside her. Astrid carefully set down the beaker she'd been cleaning and narrowed her eyes. "Hello," she said. The woman wore civilian clothes and her hair lacked the red streaks that the other Astrid had had before, but the bridge on Liberty Island had also been closed for nearly eighteen months. People changed their hair all the time.

"Hello, Astrid," the woman (the other Astrid? But the bridge was closed and no one was supposed to transverse the universes ever again) said, smiling beatifically. Astrid found herself wishing that someone would walk in. Even Gene's solid, bovine presence would be welcome, but Walter had taken the cow out for a walk around the green and wasn't back yet. "It has been a long time."

This couldn't be the Astrid from the other universe, Astrid realized belatedly. Not just the hair was different, but the face wasn't quite right. There was a strong resemblance there, but it wasn't a mirror image. A slightly wider nose, a chin with just a bit more point to it—close, but no cigar. An intense sense of nostalgia welled up within Astrid, and a warm breeze swept across the lab, carrying with it the mixed scents of memory and manzanita.

"Oh," Astrid said quietly, inhaling sharply. "You're from—" She swallowed past the lump in her throat. Even after all that she'd seen, there were still things Astrid didn't feel comfortable talking about.

"Don't you remember?" the woman cajoled, still smiling slightly. There was a hint of laughter in her voice, like she was sharing a private joke. "It's me, Dana. Your cousin. We were the best of friends when we were little. Before."

Which was a funny way of saying it, because Astrid divided her life into befores and afters. Before college, after Walter, before Peter, after Bell. Still, she knew exactly which _before_ the woman—Dana—was referring to. But Astrid said it anyway. "Before Dad and I left."

"Yes! You never came back to visit, after," Dana said. It was not a complaint, just a statement of fact. The old hometown was not an easy place to visit, for many reasons. (It wasn't an easy place to leave.) "Mother sends cards celebrating the end of Poetry Week each year. Do you get them?"

"Yes," Astrid said faintly, pulse quickening as flashes of memory skittered across her mind (cramping hands, a lingering odor of fennel, the rattle of scales against titanium). "Yes," Astrid repeated. "They always come at Christmas-time. Why are you here?"

"I went into the Dog Park," Dana said. For the first time her smile vanished, replaced with a sort of sad longing. "I went into the Dog Park and now I can't find my way home. Or." She stopped, frowned, and hummed tunelessly to herself. It was a hum that reverberated in Astrid's bones, and she recognized it as the vibrational sequence of a bloodstone circle. Walter would know what key it was in. (The key of _home_.)

Dana flickered slightly, then solidified once more. She sighed. "I can't find my way to the _right_ home at the _right_ time. Erika said you could help."

"Erika?" Astrid asked even as she remembered the sound of beating wings against a chimney. The sound of her father yelling, shouting, _screaming_ to help her, help him, help _them_ to leave. "There are no such things as angels," she added, though she couldn't say why she did.

"It said it knew you. Erika, I mean. It said that you know the way home." Dana tilted her head to the side, studying Astrid.

"Click your heels together three times." Astrid let out a half-manic laugh, because Erika was right, whoever, _whatever_ it was. Astrid did know the way home. She always had, even if, for a while, she'd forgotten. Until the other Astrid reminded her. "I'm sorry, no. That's not right, I was being facetious."

"But you do know how to get there?" From the frown on Dana's face, it was clear she very much doubted Astrid had the knowledge, despite the endorsement of the enigmatic Erika. (There're no such thing as angels.)

"Of course," Astrid said, because it wasn't something complicated, like determining the secret ingredient of a particularly good strawberry milkshake.

"Then why haven't you ever come back," Dana demanded. "It's _home_ —how can you stand to be away, to live for so long in such a strange and dangerous place?"

Turning her attention down to her hands, Astrid considered the question. Compared to many parts of the world, Boston wasn't all that strange or dangerous. But she knew that wasn't what Dana meant, _where_ she meant. "I like it here," Astrid said at last. "It's not that different from home. There are nonsensical laws and ridiculous taboos, shadowy government agencies and biannual near-apocalypses. The people are nice, mostly, and the pizza is a lot better. Libraries are safe, reassuring places. I miss the weather being musical, but that's pretty much it." There were other things she missed as well, but none of them were things that could be talked about or acknowledged.

"I suppose," Dana said slowly, "there are some good things here. Mountains look interesting, I guess. I miss home. Tell me how to get back? Please?"

"Through memory and desire, yours and others'," Astrid began to explain, but she never had a chance to finish. The door to the lab banged open and Walter walked in, leading Gene, followed by Olivia and Peter, arguing about something. For a moment, Dana lingered—then she flickered sideways, back to a small desert town (or not, as the case might be).

"Astro? Who were you talking to, my dear?" Walter asked, passing Gene's lead to Astrid.

"Oh, no one. Just... remembering, I suppose." Astrid inhaled deeply as she led Gene back to her pen. The smells of cow and rubbing alcohol were strong, but under it all there was the faintest scent of manzanita, mixed with a hint of copper.

\---

"No matter where you end up, you're still from your hometown."—a great poet (Rachel Kann)


End file.
